Overcoming
by Laira Evans
Summary: When Rukia transfers her powers something goes wrong, transforming Ichigo's shinigami body into a girl. Incompatible with her physical body it slowly dies. Ichigo tries to stay human, even as her world falls apart.  -Sort of dark.  Minor Ichigo x Tatsuki.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Bleach.

This will probably end up being wildly AU, so don't expect canon plot necessarily, or canon in general.

Japanese will be at a minimum.

Chapter 1:

"My name is Ichigo Kurosaki."

The hollow pounded towards them but as Rukia drove her sword into his chest its steps faltered as reiatsu exploded outwards. Ichigo's body fell forward onto the pavement leaving behind a figure limned in white light. A black hakama graced _her_ slender figure, a folded fan with five thin parallel blades at the tip held in her right hand. The hollow roared as it brought its skull-masked face down to devourer this feast of spiritual energy only to dissolve into the air as the girl stabbed her weapon into its skull.

Ichigo stared at her too-slender hand, confused. Some part of her mind already understood, even if her consciousness lagged behind. Bile rose in her throat but she choked it down. "Something's wrong," she said to the now white-robed Rukia in an oddly high-pitched voice. The metal fan forged from her own soul clattered to the ground, shortly followed by herself.

* * *

><p>"Good Mooorning, Ichigo!" Waking up in an instant, Ichigo grabbed the foot of his airborne father and tossed him into the wall.<p>

"Why can't you ever wake me up normally?" Ichigo blinked, recalling the events of the previous night. "Are Yuzu and Karin alright?"

Isshin scratched his head. "Eh? Did widdle Ichigo have a bad dream?"

"But-"

Yuzu stuck her head through the doorway, face alight. "Onii-san, come and see! A bus hit the house last night, the hole is huuuge!"

"A bus?" No one answered, Yuzu and his father had already bounded downstairs. '_Could it have just been a dream?' _He pulled on a jacket over his school uniform, trying to pull back every detail of the previous night. '_I couldn't have really turned into a female shinigami, right?' _The chill that plagued him refused to leave even after he made it to school.

His first class contained an unpleasant surprise. That Keigo knew of the supposed bus accident and proceeded to tell the class was merely annoying, Rukia Kuchiki posing as a student was something else entirely. After class he confronted her on the roof.

"You changed their memories somehow, didn't you?"

Rukia seemed completely at ease with the accusation. "Of course, it's standard protocol. Humans aren't supposed to know about the afterlife."

Ichigo felt himself growing angry. "And what if they encounter another hollow? How are they supposed to protect themselves if they keep forgetting they exist?"

Rukia poked him firmly in the chest. "If you fulfill your duty as a substitute shinigami, they won't have to."

"Isn't that your job?"

"It would be if you hadn't taken all my reiryoku instead of half!"

Her response rattled him a little. It was obvious that something in the process had gone wrong, but he still wasn't sure how wrong. "I'm human, and a student, I don't have time to go around chasing monsters." Ichigo turned and started walking back to class. "You said you come from Soul Society, right? Why not just call and get someone to fill in for you. If this stuff happens around the world you can't be the only one to screw up and get injured, right?"

Rukia had already moved from persuasion to plan B, tugging a red glove with a skull on it onto her hand. Shoving her hand through his torso from behind she pushed the soul out of his body.

Ichigo became very still, eyes staring blankly at herself as Rukia dragged her body into the corner. The folded steel fan she'd killed the hollow with the night before hung at her waist, somehow sticking to her him with no apparent binding. "How?" Her voice was thin and questioning, far from her normal mode of speaking.

"It's possible that part of my soul's essence imprinted itself on yours." Ichigo pulled at one of her slightly lengthened bangs, examining the dark crimson that had replaced the normal orange. "Now come on, I need to show you something." Grabbing Ichigo's hakama she pulled her off the roof behind her, ignoring Ichigo's quick yelp of surprise.

They came to an abandoned playground, swings swaying and creaking in the wind. It wasn't long before a ghost boy ran into view, closely followed by a garage-sized hollow with eight legs and a skull-face that could make children cry, and was, loudly. Ichigo stepped forward to slay the hollow but Rukia grabbed her arm, holding her back. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Saving him."

"You can't just pick and choose, Ichigo. You can't just save him because he's standing in front of you. If you save him you have to work to save all plus spirits, to go where you're ordered to and fight when you're ordered to."

Ichigo twisted out of her grip. "Don't be ridiculous, it means no such thing." Jumping ten feet upwards she sliced through one of the hollow's forelegs with the ten inch blades at the ends of her fan before twisting her body in a swift twirl to slice through the hollow's mask. As the hollow dissolved into spirit particles Ichigo imitated the soul burial she'd seen Rukia perform the previous night, casually tapping the bottom end of her battle fan to the spirit boy's forehead. As the boy transformed into a black butterfly, Ichigo stuck the fan back at her hip where it once more mysteriously adhered itself. "Trying to force me into a job by making me watch a boy get eaten isn't something someone nice would do. Maybe I misjudged you yesterday."

Rukia's voice lowered until it was nearly a growl. "Protecting people isn't about being _nice_, Ichigo, it's about doing your duty!"

Ichigo looked over her shoulder at frustrated but powerless soul reaper. "Don't come to my school again."

Ichigo powered into a run as soon as she left the boundaries of the park. '_This body is so strange,' _thought Ichigo. Transformed into a girl nearly as short as Rukia she nonetheless felt a power running through her limbs greater than anything she'd felt in a living, male body. Speeding past cars as she made her way back to school she marveled at how no one was able to see her. Nearly all her life she'd been the only one to talk with spirits no one else besides Karin could see, but to actually be the one who was invisible was surprisingly creepy. Not quite as creepy as that strange old man ghost who used to peep on her male body in the shower, but... well, it actually wasn't that close, but it was still strange.

As she neared the school she acted on instinct, forcing enough energy into her legs that her jump carried her straight to the rooftop. Locating her body she sank in, expecting a return to maleness, to normality.

It felt cold. As if his soul was shivering inside his body. Unclean, as if oil clung stubbornly to his spirit, refusing to rub free. Ichigo pulled himself to his feet using the guardrail, coughing to clear the stale, wet air from the bottom of his lungs. "Got to get back to class."

"Ichigo, you're becoming a bad seed," declared Tatsuki. "How dare you skip Math. I may have to tell Yuzu about this."

Ichigo held up his hands in protest. "Hey now, calm down, there's no reason to get my sister involved in this."

"We're watching you Ichigoooo," yelled Keigo shortly before being punched in the face by Ichigo. "Owie."

Class went by normally as Ichigo continued to shiver in his jacket despite the warm air of the classroom. The bell rang. "I-I-Ichigo, are you feeling alright?" asked Orihime.

"Fine." Ichigo picked at his lunch halfheartedly, the food tasteless no matter how much wasabi he added.

Tatsuki gripped his shoulder. "Ichigo, your arm is bleeding!"

"Eh?" He looked down at his arm, eyes widening at the raged set of slashes from where it had rested against a rusty screw from the chair. '_I didn't even notice, why didn't I notice?' _Ichigo probed the wound with one finger. '_No pain, not even a hint of it. What did that damned shinigami do to me?'_

Tatsuki grabbed his other arm, preventing further investigations. "Okabe-sensei I think Ichigo needs to go to the nurse."

"Is he bleeding that badly?" The teacher came around her desk to get a closer look at the source of the issue.

Tatsuki moved one of her hands to his forehead. "His skin is like ice."

"He's been acting funny today, too," piped in Keigo. "His punch didn't even knock me across the room today."

Shiraya Okabe lifted an eyebrow at that only to lift the other one to match it after feeling Kurosaki's skin. "Does anyone mind escorting him to the nurse?"

Ichigo stared soullessly as he tried to sort out the conflicting senses he was receiving. There were weak pulses of sensation from his physical body and growing discomfort from his spiritual one inside it. His soul's senses screamed at him, becoming more and more real than his physical senses. It felt like he was drowning.

"I will carry him," proclaimed Chad.

Tatsuku blinked. "Ah, that's alright, Chado-kun, I've got him." With the strength gained from martial arts, Tatsuki hefted him out of Ichigo out of his chair, his arm lying across her shoulders as she half-carried, half-guided him into the hallway. "So, Ichigo, did you catch the flu or did that bus crashing into your house keep you from sleeping?"

"I-" Ichigo collapsed into dead weight, nearly making Tatsuki lose her feet. Ichigo felt his heart spasm and stop, lungs coughing up blood as Tatsuki began to scream. Ichigo held out for only a moment longer before her spirit climbed out of her physical body, desperate to escape the suffocating rot. Ichigo stared at her body, its chest still, eyes dull and lifeless.

As Tatsuki began to fall forwards Ichigo caught her without thinking, only to stare at the gathering crowd of students as they filed out of their classrooms, whispers flying. Currently invisible with her own body lying in blood at her feet and Tatsuki supported at an impossible angle to the eyes of the crowd, Ichigo was at a loss as to what she should do. A brief, insane thought whispered through her mind. '_If I could just get my body to Dad maybe he could fix me.' _But in truth she knew it was useless. Even if the body could somehow be revived, Ichigo wasn't sure she could bring herself to reenter it, to feel that growing aura of death and decay smothering her as she fought to stay conscious.

"Ichigo," murmured Tatsuki mournfully, not knowing who she clung to, eyes closed against the tragedy.

Ichigo tried to set her down but Tatsuki's fingers clung stubbornly to her shihakusho. There was no help for it. She picked up her long-time friend in her arms and exited the crowd as it parted in front of her silent, invisible advance. Ichigo ignored the chaos spreading in the crowd as they marveled at the girl now floating in the air. There was no way she would stay here another second next to this place of death as a motionless, uncaring crowd took cellphone photos of her body. A teacher who had finally mate his way through the crowd took a nonexistent pulse just as Ichgo exited school at twenty miles an hour.

End Chapter 1

I'm sure some people are unhappy I didn't add another chapter to my other story, but, in truth, I really did mean to. The thing was, after 365 episodes, Bleach is finally over. And may I just say that the ending well and truly sucked. Ichigo was far, far too forgiving. I mean, its strange, really. Throughout the series there are a number of heartbreaking, cruel stories and reasonably well crafted characters, and then at the end of every arc it all gets shoved under the rug. "Who cares, let's move on," philosophy. I might have not been quite so upset if I didn't also finish watching Death Note that week. Two sub-par endings were just too much for me to stand. It's for that reason that I might also write an opening chapter for a Death Note/Harry Potter crossover to shake things up a bit in the HP world.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Ichigo's POV

I stopped after a time. Not because I wanted to stop running, but because I finally admitted I had nowhere to go. I collapsed amidst a stand of pines in the park, Tatsuki resting in my lap. There was a sort of familiar comfort with having my long-time friend near, for all that we had drifted somewhat in recent times. But that comfort was but a drop against the ocean of despair I felt at what had befallen her.

Where was I to go now? What place did the world have for someone like me? This wasn't like before, it wasn't a temporary separation from my body; I was truly dead. Would a true rather than substitute shinigami come to send me off to Soul Society as I had done that boy's soul, or would I be left to linger in this world, unseen and unheard. My life as I knew it was over. School, a normal life, it was all beyond me now. All that was left was to spend my days killing monsters, perhaps for eternity if shinigami lived so long.

Bitterly I wondered if this hadn't been what Rukia had planned all along. The more I learned of her the more unscrupulous she seemed. Despite her innocent face, she was no innocent. I no longer doubted her claim that she was over a hundred years old.

Tatsuki stirred, releasing me from my grim thoughts. I gently shifted her head onto the loam before stealing away like the spirit I was. I waited behind a tree just long enough to see her wake before I departed the park. I was far from calm, but I had now found a path to travel. I'd spoken too soon when I said the world had no place for me now. There was yet one place that I might stand and have purpose.

I was not the only one in my family that could see spirits. Yuzu could at least sense the presence of spirits, and Karin could often see them, though not hear them. There was a chance though, a chance that someday I could interact with them as if I were still alive, still human. After all, my own ability to see spirits had grown with age, so why not theirs? Though, that would bring its own dangers. If they awakened the same inner power I had, the hollows would come flocking like flies. At least now I had ability to protect them.

Much as it pained me to go anywhere near the shinigami, I would have to talk to Rukia again about the subject of hollows. I had no idea whether by dying I had ceased luring hollows to myself. If not, then I would likely do more harm than good to stay at home. For now, I would watch over them from afar.

Though my heart was still heavy, my steps were lighter than air. It took hardly any effort to move from the streets to the rooftops. It was more peaceful above the streets. I didn't have to mingle with the living, watch as their eyes slid past me unseeing and uncaring. Up above the world I could feel the wind beat lightly against my face and almost forget I wasn't alive. At least as long as I ignored the obvious superhuman abilities.

Such was my speed that I reached my house all too soon. I could have used more time to mentally prepare myself, but was it even possible to prepare for something like this? If they hadn't already gotten a call from the school I'd have to explain to them that I was dead, but still with them in spirit. I wasn't even sure Karin could see or hear me since I was a shinigami rather than a normal ghost. At least that meant I could interact with the world and write them messages if all else failed.

Instinctively I grabbed at the air as I jumped from the roof. Small crimson streaks trailed through the air from my fingertips as I fell, turning my jump to a slow, graceful descent. _'Neat.'_

I hesitated outside the door of my home, suddenly feeling like a stranger. Should I knock, or try my hand at sinking through the door. _'…' _I decided I'd check on the mood first. I stalked around to the side of the house, standing on tiptoes to peer through the kitchen window.

It was then that I saw the impossible.

End chapter 2

Wow. Hadn't thought it had been so long since my last update on this site. Well, here's a short one.


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